(The Lion) — Ireland recorded 10,852 abortions in 2024, the highest number on record and nearly a 300% increase since repeal of the country’s pro-life constitutional protections in 2018.

About one-sixth of unborn children’s lives now end in abortion in the Republic of Ireland, according to statistics from the Irish Department of Health.

Eilís Mulroy, spokesperson for the Pro Life Campaign, lamented the surge.

“That’s a truly horrifying figure, and it’s the opposite of what senior politicians promised the public would happen if they voted for repeal in 2018,” she told the National Catholic Register.

The 2024 figure represents a “280% increase from the 2,879 Irish abortions that happened in 2018, the year before the law changed,” according to Mulroy.

“I personally know politicians, TDs and senators who would have been people who campaigned back in 2018 for a yes vote … who now feel it’s gone too far and are appalled at the figures,” she added.

Even if one accepts abortion advocates’ claim that Irish women used 1,000 illegal abortion pills each year before legalization, the dramatic rise since 2018 remains shocking, Mulroy argued.

“This is not health care,” she said. “This is the ending of human lives.”

David Quinn of the Iona Institute criticized the messaging used by Irish officials, especially then-Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar.

“Leo Varadkar, when he announced the referendum in early 2018, said abortion would be ‘safe, legal, and rare,’ which clearly is not the case,” Quinn said of the 2024 numbers. “They were spinning a line about it being ‘rare’ that was convenient to them, and it was convenient to those who voted yes to believe it as well.”

Other politicians also misled the public about the referendum, according to Quinn.

“It was sold to the voters on the hard cases – like the baby is going to die soon after birth. And there was very little focus on the fact that the vast majority of babies aborted will be the healthy children of healthy women. That was barely spoken about.

“I mean, our pro-life side tried to raise it, but the pro-choice circles and the government very successfully kept the conversation about the hard cases and weren’t telling people that 90% of abortions would take place before 12 weeks.”

Ireland voted 66.4% to 33.6% to legalize abortion in a 2018 national ballot question. No major party supported the pro-life side in the vote.